


By Any Other Name

by DistantStorm



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Enemies to Lovers, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Headcanon, Lore Compliant Through Black Armory, Multi, Suraya Hawthorne and her two dads, The Last City (Destiny), The Red War (Destiny), secret identity (kind of)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-15 05:23:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17522690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistantStorm/pseuds/DistantStorm
Summary: The Vanguard Commander can't understand just why Devrim trusts her - a criminal, an outsider - so implicitly.Devrim has his reasons.





	1. Chapter 1

Devrim knows she'll come here eventually. She'll have to. Communications are out across the region - too much interference for anything more than short range, thanks to the Cabal - not that there was much infrastructure out here to begin with. Things are very, very bad.

The Guardians he's seen are beaten within inches of their now mortal lives, devoid of hope. He'd led a group of them along with his squadron from the militia to this place. A 'home for the lost,’ she'd called it. How true it was. Devrim and his compatriots set about to doing what they knew best: organizing, patrolling, surveying what resources they have. It wouldn't be anywhere near enough, but it would start them off.

He'd woken up to commotion not long after he'd fallen asleep(or more aptly, been claimed by exhaustion). Survivors, at least a hundred of them, most carrying whatever they could - guns, food, water, medical equipment. Guardians and non-Guardians alike. Several looked like City workers, based on their tattered uniforms. The crates they carried and dragged had Vanguard, FOTC, and miscellaneous other emblems attached. Looted or stolen, it mattered not where it came from. Not anymore.

Springing up to help, he was surprised to hear the roar of engines. Several of them. Battered, barely useable ships came to life with the smell of smoke and petrol, and a falcon dipped down from above, crying out.

Devrim followed it like one of his marks. He knew that bird.

“Let's move! We've got a lot of people counting on us.” The bird circled low and landed on a waiting gauntlet.

He moves without thinking, bolting around every box and being between them. She was too far away. He'd never make it.

But then, knowingly, she turned. A smile, one that pulled him apart and put him back together again, graced her usually serious features. She tipped her head in that way she did when she studied something. He nodded. She tapped her chest twice, confusing him, before climbing up into her appointed vessel and leading the expedition back toward the city, falcon in tow.

His hand slides over the corresponding part of his jacket she'd tapped - over her heart - when the ships become blips on the horizon. Paper rustles inside his pocket. He pulls it out.

Access codes, authorization frequencies. Rally coordinates. A hand-drawn map, three initials on the bottom.

_ S.K.H _ .

Clever girl, his Suraya.


	2. Chapter 2

Suraya drops from the ship as Louis kicks off from her shoulder, taking to the sky. They won’t be here long. The small crew she assembled from the most capable she’d encountered thus far - most of them militia or FOTC scouts she’d encountered in the wilds previously - would direct the rest of the survivors in unloading their supplies.

There’s a great deal deal of commotion about the normally quaint Farm, more people finding their way here while she was out on her last run. She wonders how many of them Devrim’s sent or even led here. He’s the kind of man who wouldn’t leave others behind. He had to have made it out. She wouldn’t accept anything otherwise.

It’s been roughly a day since the Vanguard abandoned the City, and a little more than two and a half since the attack by the Cabal. Hawthorne moves through the small collection of buildings near the landing field. She shouldn’t be so selfish, but if he’s here… their fledgling haven could his help.

She edges quietly past the groups of survivors sleeping in all sorts of places about the barn. In the back of the rickety old structure, she sighs as she lays eyes on him for the first time in years. Her eyes soften, not that there’s anyone around to see. Thankfully so. No one needs to see her be soft right now. She seems to be the only person they’ve got that’s not terrified of everything that moves. Maybe the second with Devrim here.

He looks gaunt and exhausted. There’s more silver in his hair. As much as she wants to wake him up, there’s not even half an hour before they’ll be wheels up again. It wouldn’t be fair to wake him, and she’ll return by late evening - they won’t go back into the City after dark. Not yet. It’s too dangerous for them to fly low in the dark without comms and decent radar. They have to be smart, careful. The Cabal are still uneasy and there is still some fighting in the streets. She knows better than to march in guns blazing, but some of these Guardians are cocky, Light or not. Tangling with them against the Cabal right now is a death sentence.

On the old workbench she finds a blank piece of paper with some long dry grease smears on the edges, but it would do. There’s nowhere to sit that doesn’t have a body slumped on it, trying to get some rest, so she leans over the workbench and ignores the twinge in her back from carrying crates that probably weigh as much as she does as she writes. She may not want to wake him up, but she doesn’t want to pretend she didn’t see him, either.

Now isn’t the time for emotions, Suraya, she chides herself. That’s a maelstrom she won’t escape if she gets into it. Responsibly, she keeps the information she gives to strict business. The rally coordinates she’s setup. The access codes she’d gotten off a couple long-dead Guardians, and an override that came from a very alive one who was probably still driving back Cabal with his sword even now. When she’s done, she reaches into her pack, pulls out a slightly thicker sheet of paper with a very detailed, well outlined map of routes she has memorized. Scanning it, she makes one last second change to the bottom right corner.

She wonders idly at the last time she’d put her name on anything. Had to be years, maybe even a decade. She kind of missed it, if she was being honest. At least, if something happened to her and her scouts, he’d have the intelligence necessary to keep up relief efforts.

There was some noise outside as her scouts gathered. She’d taken long enough. Time to go. She folded up the papers, one inside the other and slipped silently over to the sleeping sniper. Anyone else would have woken him, but she wasn’t just anyone.

Gently, she slipped the folded sheets into his breast pocket, snapping the button that held it secure between her thumb and forefingers. He slept on. A sad, wistful smile quirked the left side of her mouth upward while her heart clenched painfully. Oh, how she’d missed him. She cupped his face, thumb swiping gently across his cheekbone, hand prickled by his beard.

Hawthorne didn’t speak, not that she’d know what to say if she did. The survivors were counting on her - of all people. She knew these wilds better than anyone, and that meant she was the best chance they had.

She rose silently from his side, striding from the barn and in the direction of her ship. Her scouts(that would take some getting used to) were waiting. There was work to do.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

He'd been on watch when the ships landed, in the hilly knoll that overlooked much of the growing encampment. There were even more people with them than their first run, he guessed, based on the carrying on. It was good, he supposed, that he was not waiting for her.

Although he could feel the anticipation winding him tight, like a bow string, he knew it was good that she had time to sort out her affairs before he could get to her. Still, he needed to see her. To know she was alright, and not the kind of alright she could convince others of. She never liked to make a scene, always limped away to lick her wounds. Much like himself. But she shouldn't have to. Not every time, at least.

When another scout came by to relieve him, he slung his rifle over his back and took a slow walk back to camp. Took in all the details. Tents made of scrap and tattered tarps were growing in the shadows made by the deteriorating infrastructure left behind by the collapse.

Devrim found her in the barn, in a similar place to where he'd been kipping when she'd found him. There were less people in there now. She was sitting on a stool, her back to him as she leaned over the workbench.

“Easy, easy,” She cooed to the peregrine on the counter, half swaddled in a towel. He recognized the solution she was using, and saw the coppery stain of it on her hands. “I know you hate this, but I gotta clean you up. You shouldn't have charged him. I had it.”

A shrill cry insisted that she did not 'have it,’ as she had said. A mouthy thing, Louis was. A good partner.

A moment later, Hawthorne said, “There. Don't move.” She withdrew her hands and reached for a small dressing, concealing it beneath feathers after trimming it carefully to cover the wound. “I swear, if you pick this thing off, I'm going to be so mad. You hear me, bird?”

A series of small cheeps is the raptor's reply. Devrim smiles, watched as she removes the towel slowly, plucking a treat for him out from a pouch on her belt. He nipped at her knuckles affectionately and kicked off afterward, two powerful beats of his wings taking him to the highest part of the rafters for a well-deserved rest.

She wiped her hands off on the towel, getting the majority of betadine off her hands with the use of some water she'd nicked on her way to the barn. Turning, she jumps in surprise at the close proximity of the sniper. His coldwater eyes spark and eyebrows raise.

Suraya recovers quickly enough, teasing, “Good to know you still have moves, old man.”

He smiles at the same time she does, a little fizzy sort of giggle escaping her. It's the kind he knows means she's relieved, that she's trying to damper her emotions. That giggle was almost always followed up with tears, back when she was small enough to be carried on his shoulders and not even half his height. He missed those days.

“Suraya,” He says, and it's like his mouth doesn't move right, can barely form her name. His voice is trembling, shaky. Her smile softens just a touch, but unlike when she was young, she doesn't cry.

“Come here,” She tells him, and in a strange twist of fate he never could have imagined, she's the one comforting him when his breaths come in short, harsh gasps. “I'm so glad you're safe,” Suraya says to him. “I missed you so much,” She admits in a whisper.

“And I you,” Devrim gruffs out in reply. He squeezes her tightly for a solid thirty-count, and if she notices his trembling - and he knows she does - she doesn't voice it. It is hard to think of her as an adult, though he knows she is more independent and has always been.

When he pulls back, she drags him back in, this time letting her head rest on his shoulder, nose brushing the collar of his jacket. Some things, he thought, bringing his palm up to cradle the back of her head, never changed. This time when they part, it sticks. She steps back, but not nearly as far as she usually would be from another person.

“So, you found the Farm,” She says. “And my map.”

He taps his breast pocket. “I did. The routes are serviceable?”

“Yes. I made some hasty copies for my wayfarers who are leading groups by land, and we'll head back to the City tomorrow morning to pick up any survivors, check the Gap the day after that on our way back.”

The Gentleman Sniper frowns. “You've been in the City? Recently? I thought you were picking up survivors from the rally points you indicated.”

“Trying to get everyone out before they lock down the cracks in the wall. There's a lot of people left inside that aren't safe.”

“Have you-”

“Marc is in a bunker in the Eastern sector. He wouldn't come with me, but he's safe enough. Didn't want to be a liability for us.” She pats his shoulder. “He's always been a bit of a princess.”

“A bit melodramatic, but he means well. We'll get him out to see the world one of these days.”

“Yeah, maybe after the war.”

“War?”

“War. This war. The Red War.”

“It's only a war if there are two sides fighting, Suraya. The Vanguard retreated. Until they return, we've lost, or at the very least, are at a standstill.”

“We don't need them,” Suraya says, and her eyes slide to him, fiery as he's ever seen. “We have everything to begin right here. And the people to do so.”

“The Guardians-”

“Last time I checked, you put your life on the line like everyone else. You know how I feel about that. They'll either help or they won't.” She picks up a crate from the ground and drops it onto the workbench with a thump. There’s a sigil with wings spray painted in yellow on the side. “Assuming they want to live, they'll opt to help. Tragedy brings people together. Pretty sure you're the one who told me that.”

Yes, Devrim thinks, he did tell her that, years ago, during the Festival of the Lost. She’d asked about her parents. That isn’t important now, he thinks, something nagging at him, concern fluttering in his belly. It dawns on him suddenly, makes his head rocket up and in her direction, what she plans to do. “You're going to lead a rebellion?”

Suraya smirks, no teeth, but all cunning. His child, for sure. “I'm damn sure gonna try. These people need hope for their future, one that just might be without the Vanguard guiding them,” She pries the lid open with a grunt, “Who knows when they’ll get their heads out of their asses. Right now I'm the only one who knows how to traverse this territory safely and has caches of supplies set aside for exactly this sort of thing.”

He clicks his tongue against his teeth. “You... predicted a war?”

“I was thinking it would be more like a political revolution-” Devrim glares at her. “Don't look at me like that, I'm not tarnishing the family legacy by collecting supplies nor was I planning to start said revolution.” She glowers back, even though she can tell he’s holding back his comment on how those supplies were procured and which faction they most likely were procured from. “Look, Dev, we gotta try. I could really use your help.”

He sighs, knows for all her dealings - legal and otherwise - he’s going to trust her. “What did you have in mind?”

She reaches into the crate, pulls out heavy ammo and an old, dusty map. One of his. He had wondered where that had gone.

“We’ve got to get the word out, set up comm relays through the EDZ. People are lost out there, and we'll never find them all with search parties alone.” She smooths out the map next to the crate and blows off any residual dust. “We’re getting crews together, finding out what kind of technical support we have. Should be ready to start setting up by the end of the week.”

The militiaman is reminded of talks they’d had over supper when she was younger. She had always been interested in his work, and it seemed she’d taken much of it to heart. She might be trying to start a rebellion, but she wasn’t rushing it like he’d initially feared. She was being smart about it, thinking it through. They raised her right, he thinks. He’s proud of her, of the person she’s become.

When he refocuses, she's paused, head tilted, waiting for him to return from his thoughts. She smirks, leaning over the map when his eyes finally settle on her once more. “Anyway,” She says, “In the meantime, what do you know about Trostland? Seems like the place to start.”

What does he know about Trostland, indeed. Devrim shakes his head ruefully. She knows better than anyone just how well versed he is in that area, how he’d been stationed out there with the militia once before. His laugh is quiet, but warm.

He quips back, “What do you know about the Salt Mines?”


	4. Chapter 4

 When she was younger, Devrim would always tell Marc it took a village. Especially when she caused trouble, and one of the neighbors intervened before it could escalate. Devrim and Marc always instilled in her the truth - what was right was never easy, that doing the right thing for the wrong reasons wasn't actually right at all, and doing bad things was sometimes inevitable for the greater good.

It's the same thing Devrim tells her when she slips up to his belfry minus the Guardian, called by their Commander to rally on Titan. He means it two ways - that the Guardian could bring back more fighters for their cause, but also it takes more than one person. The Guardian’s departure is a loss, for sure, but it is not the end of the universe.

Still, Suraya feels betrayed. “We need them here,” She says. “We-”

Always the voice of reason, Devrim puts a hand over hers. Silences her. “You've been preaching that we don't need the Light or the Guardians to win this war.” Her dark eyes lock on his pale ones. “Suraya, my dear, we will get on without them. Best case, they bring back more survivors, willing to join the fight. Worst case-”

“I know,” The civilian hunter replies. “I just thought I could trust them. And,” She sighs, “Guardian or not, I don't want to lose any of my people.”

Devrim hands her a thermos. The tea inside has long gone lukewarm, but it tastes like comfort to her - like talks at the kitchen table, or a warm embrace. Reassurance. His lips pull into a small smile. “War always takes from us,” He reminds her. “But we must not let it take our conviction. Remember what we fight for. It isn't just for all those people looking to you at the Farm, Suraya. It's for all those survivors on Titan who want to go home. For all those Guardians who don't have the Light back like our friend does.”

She sits silently for a moment. Takes another swallow of tea, and thinks that she should see if she can get him a solar kettle so he can make his own when he wants to, hot and fresh. His words are right. Even if she does resent the Guardians still (though far less than before), this isn't their fault. They didn't deserve this, even if it is - for a lot of them - a long overdue lesson in humility.

“You're right,” She says finally, and ducks her head at Devrim's surprised expression. “You know,” She says, blushing, “Your reaction is kind of telling me that I never listened to you.”

He laughs at that. She missed that sound, the hearty baritone ring of it as his shoulders shake. “You listened to what I was saying,” He says, around his chortling, “But rarely agreed, or did as I asked when it came to staying out of trouble. So…” He shrugs, and the informality of it makes her gasp out a laugh of her own. “This is a nice change of pace,” He admits. “It's a testament to how much you've grown.”

She still feels like she's a kid at times like these, tells him so. Devrim smiles and draws her in for a hug and reminds her that she will never grow out being his.

-/

It isn't the Guardian who makes contact, weeks later. It’s Vanguard Commander Zavala, the Hero of Six Fronts and Twilight Gap, Titan of Titans, the right hand of the Speaker. The titles go on and on, each more ridiculous than the next. Hawthorne might have been impressed when she was younger, might have been swayed by the respect and reverence in Devrim's voice.

But not now. Now, neither the people or herself swoon over those titles. They don't care about what he did in the days of old. They care about the fact that they're here, fighting for their lives and he - the great defender of the walls - left them in their darkest hour.

Hawthorne knows she cannot turn him away, even without Devrim's gaze heavy on her back. Prejudices aside - she's trying to get past them, herself. Her people - the ones she leads - are civilians and Guardians alike. His. She found herself thrust officially into this role by necessity - backroom arguments and voting by what was left of FOTC, a few notable Guardians, the militia, and the remnants of City government.

She would have taken up the mantle regardless, and the voting was a joke. She hadn't actually been present for any of it, as it was. Devrim, several several FOTC scouts that now answered to her, and the large sword-wielding Titan with a one-horned helmet from whom she'd received her override codes - Lord Shaxx, the Crucible Handler, as he introduced himself - had let her know they had met on the subject of leadership. She laughed them off.

When most of them had gone, she quipped, “Last I checked, there wasn't anyone else vying for the job.”

Devrim had frowned, but understood. The Crucible Handler had laughed, hearty and boisterous. “I like you,” He'd said. “Give me a place to set up the Crucible and I shall raise us an army.”


End file.
